GILMAN BOYS BASKETBALL PREVIEW - Pirates expect to keep making progress on basketball court

GILMAN BOYS BASKETBALL PREVIEW

Coming off two straight winless seasons, the Gilman Pirates had nowhere to go but up last year and they did inch upward, winning three boys basketball games, including an Eastern Cloverbelt Conference sweep of Greenwood.

Year two for head coach Tyler Pockat and assistant Cory Halida begins with many of those players back at the varsity level, working and pushing themselves to build off last year’s progress.

“We had a really good week of practice,” Pockat said Friday. “They were stone focused. They didn’t just come out and say I’m just going to get through this. The seniors were being leaders. They’re my captains. They took that leadership role and it was just a fantastic week. Just the way they were helping the younger kids was good. I’m happy about the way it went.”

While it didn’t result in a lot of wins and it took longer than Pockat would’ve liked, the team made noticeable strides in all areas last year, whether it was defense, taking care of the basketball and creating some good shot opportunities.

The challenge, of course, going into this year is to keep that progress going.

“It’s like night and day,” Pockat said as to where the team is at compared to one year ago. “From when we finished practice at the end of last year and these kids had gotten the system and we knew what they were doing and they knew the expectations, it was like they picked it right up on the first day of practice. They were running the drills. You didn’t have to tell them what to do. It was muscle memory. They knew exactly what was expected of them and they knew how to do it.”

Gilman got their first look at where they stand to start the season Tuesday with scrimmages at Cadott against the host Hornets and Lake Holcombe. The season officially tips off Monday when Gilman hosts Flambeau at 7:15 p.m. in non-conference play. The Pirates will host a girls/boys doubleheader with Lake Holcombe on Dec. 5 with the boys getting the late game at 7:15 p.m.

Eastern Cloverbelt Conference play starts Dec. 10 at Owen-Withee, a team that reached a WIAA Division 5 sectional final back in March.

The top of Gilman’s varsity roster features three senior veterans in Max Ustianowski, Joey Syryczuk and Trevor Vick. The juniors are Tony Syryczuk, Sawyer Winger and Dawson Grunseth.

Sophomores Beau Pockat and Logan Halida were Gilman’s leading scorers a year ago and Connor Nichols figures to bump up into more of a varsity role as well.

In all, the Pirates have 15 players in the program to start the season, which will allow for a varsity and JV team, something not every small school is able to do anymore.

“They’re all competitors,” Pockat said. “We just have to refine a few of our plays and make sure what we know what we’re doing on offense. I think we’re going to compete better this year. I can’t tell you if we’re going to win five games, seven games, 10 games. It’s a tough conference and it doesn’t get any easier every year.”

The foundation in Gilman’s rebuilding project last year was a focus on defense and getting the Pirates to play more manto- man defense. The Pirates did make strides, going from allowing 70 points per game in 2022-23 to 62 points per game last year. Pockat said the team’s length and aggressiveness will be assets on the defensive end as well as in rebounding.

“There’s no reason we can’t compete in every game playing defense,” Pockat said. “They know what’s expected of them. We’re going to play a little bit of zone, and mostly man. They’re going to be working hard. The kids that are going to be playing on varsity, they’re good athletes.

“We should not have a problem cleaning the glass,” he added. “And they’re pretty physical kids. I just hope that doesn’t hurt us with them being football physical where we’re getting into foul trouble.”

Joey Syryczuk is the team’s leading returning rebounder, having grabbed 5.2 boards per game last winter. Ustianowski, Tony Syryczuk and Halida were all at about 3.5 per game.

Pockat said with the players now having knowledge of the defensive system down, he’s hoping they can play more freely this season.

“What’s going to come with the defense is I’m going to give them a little more freedom to make plays,” he said. “Last year I tried to reel it in, saying you had to be in this spot at this time. This year I want to let them take some chances with some things and see where it takes us.”

If the defense can remain solid, improvements offensively would be huge in potentially tilting some of the close games that ended in losses last year into wins this year.

Reducing the team’s average of 22 turnovers per game will be one good place to start.

When the Pirates were able to get into their half-court offense a year ago, they often got the good looks they wanted.

But they know they need to improve on their 30% overall shooting percentage from a year ago, which resulted in Gilman averaging just 36.9 points per game.

“Offensively I think we’re going to be a lot better,” Pockat said.

“We talked at the beginning of the season and said we’re not going to win many games scoring 30 points. We have to find a way to put the ball in the hole.

Somebody has to put the ball in the hole and it doesn’t matter who it is.

We don’t care who scores.

“I think offensively just from practice this first week and just watching them run the offense, doing stuff more freely, knowing when to backdoor cut, when to set a screen, when to do certain things, I think we’re going to fill the hole a little bit more this year on offense,” he added. “And that comes from just being familiar with the system. We just had some really bad times last year where we just could not make a shot and it just seemed like it carried on for four games.”

After not playing in the first game of last season, Halida and Pockat were bumped up to the varsity and gave the offense some punch. Both wound up averaging about six points per game with Pockat being, by far, the team’s top 3 point shooter with 28 makes. Ustianowski and Joey Syryczuk chipped in by averaging 4.6 and 4.2 points per game respectively.

The Eastern Cloverbelt Conference includes the defending Division 5 state champion, Columbus Catholic, as well as four other programs that had winning records in league play a year ago. Columbus, who was 14-0 in the conference and 29-2 overall, lost a ton of experience to graduation, which will make it interesting to see how the Dons reload. Neillsville (10 4), Owen-Withee (9-5), Colby (9-5) and Loyal (8-6) slugged it out all season long in the race for second place. All of those teams lost some key players and kept some key players. Spencer (4-10) returns its top player in junior Sam Bezlyk, who averaged 18 points and 12 rebounds per game last year.

“The guys got stronger, they got a little bit faster, they can jump a little bit higher and I hope that helps us,” Pockat said. “I don’t think it’s going to hurt us in any way.”